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Definition: literature from Philip's Encyclopedia

Collections of writings, usually grouped according to language, period, and country of origin. Within such groupings, literature may be subdivided into forms, such as poetry and prose, and within these again into categories, such as verse drama, novels, epic poems, tragedies, comedies, satires, and so on. See also literary criticism


Literature

From The SAGE Glossary of the Social and Behavioral Sciences
A collection of textual or spoken works that share a common subject matter. Though the term traditionally refers to a humanities context and includes belles-lettres, prose, verse, fiction, or nonfiction with a recognized artistic value, the concept is appropriately applied to the social sciences realm as well. In the broadest sense, literature is a means of communication. An author or editor intends to communicate a message to be broadcast to a community of readers. The medium—be it a book, a magazine article, or a speech— is a vehicle of mass communication. In general, literature is considered to be something worthy of and important to record and preserve as a cultural marker. However, the term can refer to material such as campaign literature or propaganda addressing a particular political candidate or social issue. That which might be considered ephemera at one given moment can be preserved for posterity and become part of the literature on a particular subject. Though the artistic…
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Full text Article LITERATURE

From Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760-1850
In modern terms, the literature of the Romantic period (1760-1850), considered as written texts, encompasses an almost limitless range of genres and forms: revolutionary and nationalistic pamphlets, political treatises, scientific works, philosophical tracts, critical fragments, essays, journals, …
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Full text Article LITERATURE

From Collins Dictionary of Quotations
All the arts – music and painting and the written word – are by their very nature elitist, which is why they have such power to enrich our lives. BAINBRIDGE, Beryl The Guardian , 2003. Dr Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature. BROOKNER, Anita A Start in Life (1981). …
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Full text Article LITERATURE

From Gaither's Dictionary of Scientific Quotations
English statesman and poet In science, read, by preference, the newest works; in literature, the oldest. The classic literature is always modern. Caxtoniana: A Series of Essays on Life, Literature, and Manners Hints on Mental Culture (p. 110 ) W. Blackwood & Sons. Edinburgh Scotland . 1863. In…
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Full text Article Literature

From International Encyclopedia of Human Geography
Table 1 Geographical approaches to literature.
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Glossary Dialogical Term coined by philosopher and literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin (1895–1975) to refer to a form of criticism according to which the meanings of texts are not solely based on abstract linguistic structures but are the result of the…
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Full text Article Literature

From St. James Encyclopedia of Hip Hop Culture
DAVID LIVINGSTON/GETTY IMAGES Sister Souljah...
Hip hop literature is rooted in street, or urban, literature, a genre characterized by its fictional representations of the real lives of marginalized groups. Street literature first became popular among prisoners and, in the twenty-first century, is increasingly used among educators for course…
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Full text Article literature

From Aesthetics A-Z
The art of literature is primarily the art of language , but that makes it very heterogeneous in terms of what kind of things are done, or can be done with the words, and how. The term 'literature' is normally used to refer at least to standard cases of poetry, drama and prose fiction . But more…
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Full text Article literature

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
Words set apart in some way from ordinary everyday communication. In the ancient oral traditions, before stories and poems were written down, literature had a mainly public function – mythic and religious. As literary works came to be preserved in writing, and, eventually, printed, their role became…
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Full text Article LITERATURE

From Latino Almanac: From Early Explorers to Corporate Leaders
Latino literature of the United States is the literature written by Americans of Latino descent. It includes the Spanish-language literature of what became the U.S. Southwest before that territory was incorporated through war and annexation. It thus incorporates a broad geographic and historical…
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From Keywords for Latina/o Studies
In Loida Maritza Pérez's (1999) coming of age novel, Geographies of Home , the protagonist Iliana María seeks refuge from great personal, familial, and societal hardships by reading, telling, and writing stories. Early in the novel, readers learn that to overcome her harsh material conditions, …
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Full text Article LITERATURE

From The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of the American Enlightenment
As a term referring to imaginative writing of all kinds, literature groups together widely diverse modes of expression found in the American eighteenth century, including plays, captivity and slave narratives, sermons, poems, novels, and a variety of essay forms. The term must inevitably violate…
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